REVIEW: Wetlands

Author: Charlotte Roche, translated from the German by Tim Mohr

2009, Grove Press

Filed under Literary, Chick Lit

C4 Ratings.....out of 10
Language..... 7
Entertainment..... 7
Depth..... 8

Be warned, this book is rife with graphic language and the descriptions are often quite prurient, sexually, scatalogically, and otherwise. I won’t really be able to quote or fully express what exactly Roche discusses in this novel without the review being flagged NSFW. That said, this is an excellent novel, and the explicit writing certainly lends itself to that. You’ll see above that I’ve added “Chick Lit” as one of the labels. That’s a borderline definition. I feel it is fair to an extent (although I, personally, tend to regard chick lit as the antithesis to literary novels). It is, especially the first half, a novel very much concerned with the intimate details of women, particularly their relationships to their own bodies. But there is no name dropping of fashion accessories or anything silly like that, and this is undeniably an intelligent and emotionally complex book.
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REVIEW: Mercury in Retrograde

mercuryAuthor: Paula Froelich

Atria, 2009

Best ebook deal: Sony’s eBook Store or Barnes & Noble

Filed under: Chick Lit

C4 Ratings.....out of 10
Language..... 5
Entertainment..... 8
Depth..... 4

In her first novel, Mercury in Retrograde, Paula Froelich channels a less refined Plum Sykes or a less witty Candace Bushnell—and true to her previous gig as The New York Post’s Page Six gossip editor, her fictional attempt harnesses tidbits of New York society that only a gossip columnist could wrap her charms around.

The tale begins with the disclaimer “When Mercury is in retrograde, anything bad that can happen will.” One character’s name, not so cleverly, is Penelope Mercury, but she is no more a focus of the story than the other two main characters: Lena Lippencrass and Dana Gluck. Froelich superficially meanders through their not-so-charmed lives: Mercury is a down on her luck 27-year-old roving reporter who is gunning for a promotion but instead gets canned; Dana is a 30-something workaholic lawyer who has cloistered herself within the confines of her apartment since her husband left her for a Victoria’s Secret model; and Lena (referred to throughout most of the book as “Lipstick” due to an unfortunate lipstick-related car crash) is a 27-year-old socialite working for a renowned fashion magazine and living a glamorous life until her parents decide to cut her off.
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